DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
The mission of Ponce Health Sciences University is to provide high-quality education in all our health services-related schools and programs through an innovative curriculum while preparing our students to be ethical practitioners. Our institution strives to provide students and faculty with exposure to a diverse population so they can succeed in an increasingly diverse workplace and global communication culture. An academic and working place environment that fosters interaction among a diverse student, faculty, staff, researchers, and senior administrative staff body will significantly prepare our graduates to provide the high-quality care all diverse communities deserve.
Several racial and ethnic minority groups, as well as people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, among others, are significantly underrepresented among health professionals in the United States. From an ethnics’ perspective, underrepresented minority groups have traditionally included individuals of African American, Mexican American, Native American, and Puerto Rican descent. Numerous public and private programs aim to remedy this underrepresentation by promoting the preparedness and resource availability to these groups and socioeconomically disadvantaged students interested in health-related professions. Our institution will encourage admission and retention policies that support University’s self-defined, priority under-represented populations and allow them either to enter the health professions pipeline or to discover a safe working place at PHSU.
PHSU schools and programs are guided by our mission “to provide a world class, culturally competent, health sciences education to the population we serve.” Our students, faculty, staff, and senior administrative staff are mostly of Puerto Rican and Hispanic descent. This brings to our university a special diversity status in the USA (United States of America) (United States of America) Mainland spectrum.
PHSU incorporates elements of diversity in their planning that include gender, racial, ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic. University establishes focused, significant, and sustained programs to recruit and retain suitably diverse students, faculty, staff, and senior administrative staff.
PHSU recognizes diversity, equity, inclusion, and cultural competence as critical to health sciences education and fundamental to developing a health care workforce able to provide high quality, culturally appropriate, and congruent health care in partnership with individuals, families, communities, and populations and a health care workforce who fully value the importance of diversity, inclusion, and equity to promote the health of the nation and the world.
Based on the previous statements, PHSU has policies and practices aimed at achieving appropriate levels of diversity, equity, inclusion, and cultural competence among its students, faculty, staff, and senior administrative staff. The University engages in ongoing systematic and focused efforts to atract and retain students, faculty, staff, and senior administrative staff from diverse backgrounds, and systematically evaluate comprehensive strategies to improve the institutional climate for diversity.
PHSU recognizes that cultural differences affect all aspects of health and health systems.
The elaboration of this policy was the result of teamwork that included the representation of all the Programs and Schools of the University, Ponce Research Institute, and the collaboration of the following institutional components: Compliance Officer, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Vice President for Students Affairs, and a representative from the Human Resources Office.
For more informative about this policy, visit our Catalog from page 68 to 85.
